A 2.9 magnitude earthquake struck off South Korea's southeastern coast early Wednesday, the state weather agency said. The quake occurred at 1:39 a.m. in waters about 35 kilometers off the city of Ulsan, some 415 km southeast of Seoul, according to the Korea Meteorological Administration (KMA). The epicenter was at a depth of 19 km, and the quake's tremor was recorded at Level 1 on the seismic intensity scale, which means most people would not have felt it. According to the KMA, the quake w

South Korea will cut the dosage interval between primary vaccination and COVID-19 vaccine booster shots for senior citizens in a move to curb breakthrough infections and serious cases amid worries over virus upticks, Prime Minister Kim Boo-kyum said Wednesday. Booster shots for people aged 60 or older and nursing hospital patients can be administered four months after they received their last dose, while those in their 50s can get extra jabs five months after their primary COVID-19 vaccination,

Just two weeks after South Korea began an official return to normal, a bed shortage is looming, prompting the government to organize an emergency meeting with hospitals. But even as hospitals scramble to make room for COVID-19 patients, the government is intent on keeping the country open, pursuing instead policies to boost travel and spending. Senior officials of the Ministry of Health and Welfare on Tuesday morning held an emergency teleconference with directors of hospitals in Seoul and n

SEJONG -- South Korea looks set to keep its undesirable No. 1 position in the pay gap between male and female employees in 2020 among the 38 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. According to the organization, Korea posted 31.5 percent in the gender wage gap last year. This means that women earned 31.5 percent less than men on average, a gap that is likely to surpass those of other members, based on previous years’ data. According to the OECD’s def

The chief of the state watchdog on personal information protection has apologized for the recent leak of personal information of 181 petitioners involved in a Facebook personal data breach case. The Personal Information Protection Commission mistakenly sent the personal information of all 181 petitioners to 19 of them earlier this month. The commission has been arbitrating between the petitioners and Facebook over the social networking service's unauthorized leak of their personal data. "

Twenty-six people have been apprehended on charges of smuggling illegal drugs from Southeast Asia and distributing them across the country, police said Tuesday. Police also caught 45 others who purchased drugs from the dealers of a drug trafficking ring. Of the total of 71 suspects, 22 were formally arrested. The dealers were found to have smuggled methamphetamine, synthetic cannabinoids and other narcotics from unidentified Southeast Asian countries from May last year to August by hiding them

A proposed conversion of industrial-use urea or urea solution into vehicle-use solution is impossible right now, a state-run laboratory said Tuesday, dashing hopes for an early end to the nation's acute shortage of the chemical compound. The National Institute of Environmental Research (NIER) under the Ministry of Environment said it has tentatively concluded it is difficult to convert industrial urea or urea solution for use by diesel-fueled vehicles to cut emissions. South Korea has been mak

South Korea saw its foreign population shrink by 3.2 percent in November last year from the previous year, the first such decline at least since 2006 amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the interior ministry said Tuesday. According to a report by the Ministry of the Interior and Safety, the number of foreign residents, defined as foreign nationals residing in the country for more than 90 days or naturalized Koreans and their children, stood at 2.15 million in November in 2020, compared with 2.22 millio

The number of critically ill COVID-19 patients in South Korea hit an all-time high on Tuesday as the daily caseload hovered over 2,000 for the seventh consecutive day amid eased antivirus curbs. The country reported 2,125 new COVID-19 cases, including 2,110 local infections, raising the total caseload to 399,591, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA). The number of patients in serious condition came to the highest ever figure of 495, breaking the previous record o

Presidential candidates from the ruling party and the main opposition on Monday criticized a panel's decision to ban articles by Yonhap News Agency on mainstream internet portals. A committee jointly formed by leading web portals -- Naver and Daum -- in 2015 to evaluate news partnerships on Friday announced that the two portal operators should cancel their partnerships with Yonhap, in a measure that limits readers from viewing the agency's news articles on the portal sites for one year, as the

The first tourists from Singapore since the start of the coronavirus pandemic arrived Monday in South Korea under a bilateral travel bubble agreement. A travel bubble refers to a quarantine-free travel partnership between two or more cities or countries with similar levels of COVID-19 cases. The tourists landed at Incheon International Airport earlier in the day and will be free to travel around the country without quarantine if they test negative on a polymerase chain reaction test, the Korea

Government rules out activating emergency response despite scarce beds

INCHEON -- The customs office at Incheon International Airport will launch a special crackdown on drug smuggling ahead of Black Friday and other seasonal sales in the United States, officials said Monday. The seven-week crackdown will last for seven weeks through the end of the year, officials said. Smuggling of marijuana could jump during Black Friday and Cyber Monday, which fall after Thanksgiving in the fourth week of November, as discounts are offered during the holiday shopping period in

Regional discrimination found in rift between Jeolla and Gyeongsang provinces, rupture between Seoul and rest of the country

The Seoul city government will temporarily lift operating day restrictions on privately-owned taxis in an effort to increase nighttime taxi services, as eased anti-virus restrictions are jacking up demand for nocturnal transportation, officials said Monday. The city will temporarily remove the restrictions under which privately-owned cabs were required to take every third day off, allowing them to run services in the nighttime period from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. on the otherwise off day, the city gove